Should the Fates Allow
by Meg Kenobi
Summary: You said I wouldn't have to spend Christmas alone anymore,


Should the Fates Allow by Meg Kenobi Rating: PG afirmation@aol.com  
  
Summary: Remus Lupin spends his first Christmas without Sirius Black. RL/SB slash and shameless fluff. Happy Holidays!  
  
Disclaimer: If I were J.K. Rowling, I'd be writing Year 6, not fan fiction. Obviously I do not own Harry Potter or any of its respective trademarks. No infringement is intended and no profit is made from this work.  
  
Author's Note: The relationship in this piece is a slash one. A gay one. Homosexual. Two male cannon characters engaged in a relationship. If you don't like that, please leave now! Also, let it be known that I am not a shipper by any means. This is a Christmas special so I'm sorry if some bits are a bit OC. Also, as I wrote this for the holidays so it's a bit rushed. Again I'm sorry. This is shamelessly fluffy. Please don't hate me for it.  
  
Uber thanks to Greg, the greatest beta reader a girl can have, even if his spelling is as bad as mine! Rainbows and glitter to all, from Greg. ---  
  
"You said I wouldn't have to spend Christmas alone anymore," Remus whispered to the photograph smiling up at him. Tears gathered in his eyes as his mind played through the years.  
  
************  
"It's snowing, Remus," an all too familiar voice whispered in his ear.  
Remus Lupin drowsily opened his eyes and rolled onto his back, certain the voice had been carried to him by the last tendrils of a cruel dream. As his eyes drifted back into the waking world however, he noticed the figure looming over him.  
"Sirius!" he hissed, at once furious and terrified. "If someone sees you -- If they find you--," but Sirius was shushing him and waving off his lover's panic. Remus sat up, staring at Sirius in disbelief. At once his indignant protests melted into silent tears.  
"What are you doing here?" He asked again, "I was almost ready to spend another Christmas without you."  
"I left you on your own for the last fifteen years, Remy, I had to come. Now come on! Get up! It's snowing," Sirius grinned, forever an impish little boy. He pulled Remus to his feet.  
"And where exactly do you think we're going, Sirius? We can't exactly go romping around like school boys. A wanted convict and a werewolf building a snow wizard? Now there's something the neighbors haven't seen before." Remus took note of the vaguely crestfallen look crossing Sirius's face and couldn't help but smile. Haloed by the frosty morning light, Sirius looked like some misplaced boy angel, cast out of heaven by circumstance. "That's what you want, isn't it? Hell, Sirius, that's what I want. I wish we could all be fifteen again. Skive off Potions, have a snowball fight, try and lure Snivellus onto thin ice . . . but we grew up. We lost James and Peter betrayed us all. Now we have to be adults and make adult choices. There's so much more at stake this time-- ," Remus's voice cracked and Sirius pulled him close.  
"Ah, Remy, forever selfless. But you can't scare me off. I'm yours for today. Tomorrow I go back to hiding in the shrubbery, but for Merlin's sake, it's Christmas. Not even you can put a damper on that."  
  
************  
"It's bloody cold out here," Remus shivered through his threadbare coat, stuffing his hands into his pockets. The black dog gallivanting ahead of him barked with human amusement and pranced on, biting at the falling snow. "It's beautiful though," he amended, looking at the white world around them. "Amazing how it came down overnight. Covered up all the ugliness that I have to look at the rest of the year." Remus settled on a stump and watched the snow fall. "I wish we could be more like this, love. Pure and sacrosanct and hidden from everything hurtful and ugly. But even the snow is ephemeral and quick. It will be gone the moment you're ready to forgive the cold and love its beauty." The dog's head lulled to the side for a moment, but it was clear he was tired of Remus the Philosopher. He leapt at the scrawny man and toppled him backwards with to massive black paws. Remus laughed and threw a handful of snow at the dog who barked encouragingly.  
"Come on, let's go in before someone thinks you're mad and rabid and shoots you," Remus brushed the snow from his careworn pants and lead Sirius back to the warmth of his small house.  
  
************  
"It's a Charlie Brown tree," said a now fully human Sirius, surveying Remus's sad little Christmas tree.  
"A what?"  
"Never mind. It's a muggle thing. Looks kind of like you, Remus. Shabby and peaky."  
"You're so mean to me," Remus muttered without any real conviction, leaning against Sirius's chest. He sighed a little and watched from the sofa as the lights glowed and sparkled on the tree. Every year he put up the rather pathetic tree out of some pitiful longing. Every year it had stared back at him, an unforgiving and cruel remind of the bitter loneliness in which he seemed damned to squander this life. But not this year.  
"Why did you come, Sirius? Why did you risk being seen to be here with me?"  
"Because I made you a promise, pet. Fifth year, when we all spent Christmas in the Screaming Shack because it happened to be a full moon. I promised you then that you would never have to spend Christmas alone and I meant it. You never lost faith in me Remus. Even when they convinced you that I murdered Pettigrew, you never stopped believing that I was a good person. I can't remember much about Azkaban, and that's probably for the best. The one thing I remember is you visiting me every Christmas and reminding of the holidays we spent together. It was something that carried me through, something the Dementors could never quite steal away. And so I'm going to make sure that you never spend Christmas alone again, whatever the danger."  
  
************  
"You promise, Sirius?" Lupin mumbled, but was snapped from his reverie by a vicious, baiting voice.  
"So Lupin, how does it feel to spend this Christmas alone?" Snape snarled.  
Remus clutched Sirius's picture to his chest and smiled awkwardly.  
"I'm not so alone. And Severus, I'm sorry."  
"What are you talking about, Lupin?" Snape asked, his voice murderous.  
"None of us ever knew what it was to be unloved. And we never will. I'm sorry; I can never understand what it must be like to be so alone, Severus, because I was loved and I'll always have that." 


End file.
